Cooking Fuels and Respiratory Infirmity in Rural Barak Valley: An Analysis of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana Period

This study is an attempt to examine the fuel use pattern and its impact on the respiratory health of the users in the rural area of Barak Valley region of southern Assam. The effectiveness of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in mitigating the practice of unclean fuel has also been analysed in this study along with other related issues. The results based on personal information of 2,541 individuals from 530 households of Barak Valley reveal that incidence of respiratory illness is more profound in the households of solid biomass fuel users. The study further reveals that though PMUY has equipped the rural households with clean fuel connections but failed to change the fuel use practice of the beneficiaries. Among the barriers of clean fuel use practices, insufficient income of the households and availability of free and low-cost alternative fuels are found to be more prominent. The ordered probit model to examine the factors posing risk to respiratory illness reveal that women are at higher risk of developing respiratory syndromes as they spend more time in cooking space. While among others, smoking habit and age of the person are significant in increasing the risk pulmonary syndromes. JEL: I15, I38, Q52, Q58

RECOVERING THE SILENCED VOICES: THE PLIGHT AND TRAUMA OF KAIBARTA PARTITION REFUGEES OF SONBEEL, BARAK VALLEY OF ASSAM

The historiography of the Partition of India, the creative literature andthe films evoked out of the pangs of Partition are primarily concerned withthe Partition of Punjab and Bengal. Assam as the third site of Partition remained under the veil of silence for nearly six decades. In recent years, academic interventions are forthcoming to unveil the human history of the Partition of Assam which triggered a huge forced migration of population in the Brahmaputra Valley, Barak Valley and the hill areas of Assam. Given the discrimination that the Dalits experienced during and after the Partition of India, they are the triply marginalised group due to their caste, class and refugee identities. As the Dalits lacked agency in the Barak Valley, their plight largely remains unattended. In this context, the present paper is an attempt to recover the plight of the Kaibarta Partition refugees who were the victims of forced migration from Sylhet/ East Pakistan to Sonbeel area of Barak Valley of Assam especially, after the communal violence of 1950 in East Pakistan.